the_singapore_lgbt_encyclopaediawikiaorg-20200215-history
Singapore LGBT allies
Singapore LGBT allies refers to heterosexual friends of Singapore's LGBT community who have been publicly supportive of LGBT equality. =Historical= Yap Kim Hao : Main article: Yap Kim Hao : See also: Rev. Yap Kim Hao's involvement in LGBT activism Rev. Dr. Yap Kim Hao (1929 - 2017) served as a Methodist pastor in Malaysia and Singapore before being consecrated the first Asian Bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia and Singapore from 1968 to 1973. He was elected as the General Secretary of the Christian Conference of Asia between 1973 and 1985 and was directly involved in social justice issues, ministering to the marginalised and oppressed in the region. In 1988, he accepted an invitation to be Visiting Professor of World Christianity, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA. He also taught in summer school at the Vancouver School of Theology, Canada in 1990. Rev. Yap was on the Council of the Inter-Religious Organisation in Singapore and was committed to the promotion of inter-faith dialogue and understanding. He served as the Pastoral Advisor of the Free Community Church, which counts many LGBT Christians in its congregation. =Contemporary= Siew Kum Hong : Main article: Siew Kum Hong Siew Kum Hong is a Singaporean lawyer who spent the first 5 years of his career in private practice specialising in technology matters, first in a big firm and then in his own boutique practice. He has been in-house ever since. He joined Airbnb, Asia-Pacific in October 2012, and was with Yahoo! for 5.5 years before that. Siew was a Nominated Member of Parliament during the term of the 11th Parliament from 18 January 2007 to 17 July 2009, together with Gautam Banerjee, Cham Hui Fong, Edwin Khew Teck Fook, Loo Choon Yong, Kalyani K. Mehta, Eunice Elizabeth Olsen, Jessie Phua née Wong Wai Chan and Thio Li-ann. It was during his stint as an NMP that he presented the Parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code and for which he is best remembered. Siew was also a founding member and past Vice-President of MARUAH, a Singapore human rights NGO. He was AWARE's legal advisor for the annual general meeting at Suntec City during the AWARE saga in 2009. Khoo Hoon Eng : Main article: Khoo Hoon Eng : See also: Khoo Hoon Eng: LGBT allyship Associate Professor Khoo Hoon Eng received her BA in Biochemistry at Smith College, PhD at St Mary’s Medical School, London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Medical Education at the University of Dundee. She taught at the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Malaysia for 10 years before joining the Faculty of Medicine (now Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine) at NUS in 1988. Between 1997 and 2003, she was Vice-Dean in the Faculty of Medicine. During a leave of absence from NUS, she worked for three years (2007-2010) as the Provost and Acting Vice-Chancellor of a new liberal arts institution – the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh. She joined Yale-NUS College in October 2011 as Director in the Office of the Executive Vice President (Academic Affairs), before moving on to her appointment as Director of Special Projects in the Office of the President, with responsibilities in faculty hiring, campus design and curriculum planning. Kirsten Han : Main article: Kirsten Han Kirsten Han is a freelance journalist and Editor-in-Chief of New Naratif, a platform for Southeast Asian journalism, research, art and community-building. She also curates We, The Citizens, a weekly email newsletter covering Singaporean politics, social justice and civil society. Originally trained in film and video production, Han got her introduction to journalism while working as an assistant producer on documentary projects. She began freelancing, mostly in print and online journalism, in 2012. Although largely focused on her hometown of Singapore, she has also covered stories from countries like Greece, Scotland and Malaysia. Han has covered a wide range of topics — from general news to business, and even architecture but tends to gravitate towards the themes of social justice, civil movements, human rights and democracy. Her features, reports, and op-eds have appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Asia Times. In 2019, her essay The Silhouette of Oppression was published by Epigram Books. Outside of work, she is a founding member of We Believe in Second Chances, a group advocating for the abolishment of the death penalty. As part of the campaign, she tells the stories of death row inmates and their families, and also volunteers her time as a case worker to work with the families of inmates. In 2016, she was named the Advocate of the Year at the Singapore Advocacy Awards, both for her work as a journalist as well as her role in the anti-death penalty campaign. She was also named a Champion of Gender Justice and Equality at the AWARE Awards that year. In 2018, she received an Honourable Mention for the World Justice Project’s Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism. In 2019, she won a Human Rights Press Award for her commentaries on “fake news” and freedom of expression. Han is a staunch ally of the LGBT community and has written numerous articles advocating equal rights for LGBT Singaporeans. In honour of her allyship, she was invited to give a speech as one of the Community Voices during Pink Dot 2017. Constance Singam : Main article: Constance Singam Tommy Koh : Main article: Tommy Koh : See also: Tommy Koh's views on homosexuality Tommy Koh is an international lawyer, professor and diplomat. He was also a former ambassador for Singapore to the United Nations. Braema Mathi : Main article: Braema Mathi Andrew Loh : Main article: Andrew Loh Akesh Abhilash : Main article: Akesh Abhilash Martin Piper : Main article: Martin Piper Darius Cheung : Main article: Darius Cheung Darius Cheung is the co-founder of the property marketing company 99.co. Prior to founding 99.co, Cheung was the Director of Consumer Mobile Technology at McAfee, which acquired tenCube, a Singapore-based mobile security company also founded by Cheung and which he served as CEO for 5 years. Another company he co-founded was BillPin. At tenCube, he grew the startup into a team of 26 people in 2 locations over 5 years, raised funds in 2 rounds of financing, created award-winning mobile security product WaveSecure and led the startup to profitability. For his role in tenCube and and the local startup community, he was selected as one of BusinessWeek’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in Asia and was a recipient of the Singapore Youth Award. He is also an angel investor and serves on the steering committee for Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE). Sam Ho : Main article: Sam Ho =See also= *Singapore LGBT personalities *Homosexuality in Singapore =References= =Acknowledgements= This article was written by Roy Tan. Category:LGBT articles